


with the fire behind us

by dustofwarfare



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Not Happy, Time Travel, dark!fic, puppet!cloud kinda, sephiroth is evil, this is mean and it made me sad to write sorry???, underage-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 20:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13509333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare
Summary: Why have an adversary when you could have an ally?Or, Sephiroth travels back in time and gives Cloud Strife everything he ever wanted, with disastrous consequences.





	with the fire behind us

**Author's Note:**

> For the Sefikura week prompt #2, Puppet. Note: Follows original game canon only. 
> 
> This isn't a nice story, sorry?? 
> 
> Title from "Ash" by my fave band, Murder by Death.

There is no time in the Lifestream.

Sephiroth drifts; he is alone and he is angry, limitless and confined, burning with the need for revenge and the quiet certainty of a soldier who knows when a new strategy is necessary.

So he sinks into the current and measures it carefully, ascertains its properties and its peculiarities, begins to think how best to manipulate it for his purposes. For it can be manipulated, can it not? That’s what brought mako into people’s households, it’s what brought materia and monsters and Cloud Strife and Mother –

Sephiroth finds an eddy that breaks off the main river, focuses the Will that has kept him sentient when lesser beings have been drowned by the sheer force of the planet’s energy, and _swims._

He needs to go back. Not to the now when the Planet is free of its reliance on mako and Cloud Strife is some unstoppable force of nature. There is a beginning and a before and Sephiroth will find it, he _does_ find it, and he drags himself out of the drenching waters and onto the shore, cold and gasping for breath and thinking _this time, I will win._

***

At first he wondered if he would be required to face himself when he went Back, but apparently the Planet makes some allowances for this; he walks into ShinRa HQ – whole and gleaming, a bright tower in a city not yet decimated by ash and greed – and he is just Sephiroth, Soldier FIRST, and if any suspect he is not who he claims to be, they do not say.

He finds the boy when he’s barely a recruit, small and nervous and scared, and thinks _it would be so easy to kill him._ Cloud Strife is nothing like the man he will become, he’s all giant blue eyes devoid of their mako glow, short, possessed of an accent so thick it’s hard to understand him.

Sephiroth watches him and rethinks his strategy. To kill Cloud Strife is one thing; it means he will no longer have him as an adversary. But Strife, for whatever reason, does not remain this wide-eyed country boy with ill-defined dreams of greatness. Strife will become a force to be reckoned with. Strife will become his nemesis and Sephiroth knows that is no small thing, to be the antagonist of one such as he.

Perhaps he does not wish to eliminate Strife; after all, if not him, some other will rise and take his place. No, there is a better way, a different way, and it makes him smile to think of it.

_Not my adversary, then, but my ally._

***

“Trooper Strife,” Sephiroth says, brusquely, falling easily back into the role of SOLDIER First. “Come with me. I’ll be conducting some one-on-one training with you.”

“M-me, sir?” Strife squeaks, and his voice has barely changed, he is a _child_ and Sephiroth has to use all his considerable will not to sneer at him, mock this baby-faced would-be warrior until he goes home to his provincial hometown snot-nosed and in tears.

“Yes, you.” Sephiroth snaps his fingers. “Come.”

Strife, full of adoration and clumsy excitement, tries his best. He drops his sword, he shakes, he faces his then-idol with lackluster skills and it’s such a complete waste of time that Sephiroth thinks of going back to his original plan and killing him straightaway. This creature is not his nemesis. This creature is a joke, an absurdity, a gnat that would be so easily squashed.

Sephiroth says something in a sneering voice, simply to watch Cloud’s face crumble and see him break under his idol’s displeasure…but something happens. Cloud does not break. He struggles to breathe, he is trembling and weak and there are tears in those hateful blue eyes…but he picks up his sword and he does not stop until sheer exhaustion makes him faint.

That’s when Sephiroth sees it, the thing that will buoy him, give him strength. Cloud’s spirit wants what his body is to weak to deliver, but Sephiroth knows better than anyone that in the end, the Spirit, the Will, is all that really matters.

“We’ll do this again tomorrow, and the day after that,” Sephiroth says curtly, once he’s revived Strife with a potion. “Dismissed.”

***

Under his brutal tutelage and his insistence that he be, Cloud Strife is accepted into SOLDIER.

“I – sir, thank you,” Cloud breathes, adoration shining in those pretty eyes, as he stares worshipfully at Sephiroth when Sephiroth personally delivers the news. “I…you believed in me, and I … don’t know how to thank you.”

“I have a few ideas, Strife. Come to my apartment this evening and we’ll see how well you follow directions.”

Cloud blushes and smiles, ducks his head and nods. “Y-yes, sir.”

Sephiroth leans down to kiss him, smiling against that gasping little mouth. “I’m so _proud_ of you, Strife. You will become something even greater than you know.”

***

In bed, Cloud is as eager to please as he is everywhere else; he is clearly not sure about anything he’s doing, clumsy with his hands and his mouth but Sephiroth does not care.

He takes him with Cloud on his back, staring up at him with those blue, blue eyes – blue eyes that will get their mako shine because of _him_ , blue eyes that will never watch him die.

***

“He’s just….so young,” Zack says, uncomfortably, unable to meet Sephiroth’s eyes. “I just don’t think it’s right, the two of you being together…like that.”

“I don’t see how this is any of your business, Zack.”

Zack frowns and rakes a hand through his hair. “Well, it’s…just. He’s not…I mean, you know what everyone is saying, right? That he only got into SOLDIER because you and him….y’know.” He shifts on his feet. “No one really takes him seriously.”

Of course Sephiroth knows that. That’s exactly how it should be.

Cloud Strife is nothing without him. Not in this reality or any other.

“I wanted to bring this up with you because I…me and some of the others, we’re thinking of going to Lazard,” says Zack. He looks miserable. “I’m sorry, Sephiroth, it’s just that we think you’re abusing your position and that it’s putting Strife in danger. He’s not SOLDIER material and it’d be…better, for him, if maybe he were re-assigned.”

“Do as you feel you must,” Sephiroth says, waving his hand. “I cannot stop you.”

But he does.

He remembers, vaguely, some clusterfuck of a mission that involved a group of SOLDIERS trapped in an airplane and drowning in the water when they couldn’t get free. He makes sure that Zack is assigned on the mission, and no one says a word about Strife after that.

***

“Is it true I’m going with you to Nibelheim?” Cloud asks, shyly, sitting on the edge of Sephiroth’s bed.

“Mmm,” says Sephiroth, running a hand through Cloud’s hair. “Yes. It will be very important that you follow my instructions to the letter, when we’re there, regardless of your personal feelings toward the town or anyone in it. Can you do that, Cloud?”

Cloud nods, eyes full of worship and affection. “Of course, sir,” he says, shyly. He is lovely, the mako adding the shine to his pretty eyes, his body hardening into more of the warrior Sephiroth remembers, his mind twisted by Sephiroth’s attention, his affections, into the puppet he was always meant to be.

***

In Nibelheim, Cloud does not understand when Sephiroth tells him they must remove the sample.

“This is your mother?” Cloud asks, watching with huge eyes as they stand by the tank. He presses a hand to the cold glass, swallowing visibly. “I don’t…Sephiroth, are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” Sephiroth takes his chin in his hand and forces Cloud to look at him. “Cloud. Do you remember when you were nothing but a recruit, that I saw greatness in you, that I thought you should be a SOLDIER?”

“Yes,” Cloud nods, biting his lip. He glances at he tank again. “It just feels wrong.”  

“Do not betray the faith I have shown in you,” Sephiroth says, grabbing him by the shoulders. “You must do as I say. Have I ever let you down?”

Cloud shakes his head, still clearly uncertain. “N-no, but…”

“It is the way it needs to be,” Sephiroth assures him, and the triumph he feels when Cloud helps him take Jenova from the tank is all-consuming, it is eternal, it is the balm on a thousand wounds this man will never cause.

Before they leave Nibelheim, it is Cloud Strife that lights the flame that burns it to the ground.

***

Meteor falls and they watch together in the Northern Crater, the sky lighting up and the heavens burning.

Cloud turns to him as the sky brightens, as the cities turn to ash. “I – we shouldn’t have done this,” he says. “Something is wrong.”

“Everything is just as it should be,” Sephiroth says, pulling him close. “And you have finally done everything I wanted you to do.” He kisses him, and kisses him, until all he tastes is ash and the world dies around them.


End file.
